Difficult Scriptures
Do you ever come across bits in the Bible that you really wish were not there? Or bits that never will make sense, however often you hear someone talk about them in a meeting? I think there is a tendency for Christians to focus on the bits they do like or do understand, and kind of hope the rest will go away. As a church we have tried to "do the difficult bits", hence you will find people among us who live in community, or are celibates, or are from the "poor of society". We do believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are real and for today, and the thing that changed the church from a traditional Baptist church to what it is today was people praying along the lines "God, if what I read is real then I want to see it happening today" BUT I don't really think it is good enough to belong to a church that does such things and not make a decent attempt to be reconciled to the hard bits of the Bible personally. I don't think we can do faith second hand. SO this is the beginning of a series (however long) about the bits of the Bible I find hard...
Difficult Scriptures. 1 Corinthians 10:13
This is saying we will not be tempted more
than we can cope with, but I reckon the evidence of life shows
we ARE tempted more than we can cope with because in times
of crisis or temptation we DO fall and we DO fail. These are
a few ideas that try to match the promise that we are not
tempted more that we can cope with, and the evidence that
sometimes it is all too much and we fail.
" God does know
how much we can cope with, just in our moment of crisis we
fail to grab a hold of the life belt he throws to us. " The
temptation was not too much for us, just we wanted to do whatever
it was so did not fight the temptation hard enough "
The failure
we have gone through is not the end of the story. God is into
the bigger picture and the lessons we will learn in the long
term will strengthen our character and give God glory.
The
Bible is full of people who love God but mess up. Moses had
a bad temper and murdered someone.
David had a problem with
women, committed adultery and had the woman's husband killed
to cover it up.
Peter promised never to deny Jesus and tried
to kill someone to stop them arresting Him, and then he denied
Him, ran away, and went back to his old life after the crucifixion.
These people were still used by God loads.
Moses got to see
God face to face. David knew God deeply and wrote the Psalms,
including ones that prophesy about Jesus. Peter was re-commissioned
and led the church after Pentecost.
So... another thought
is that God knows that the temptations and failures will not
be enough to destroy His plan for us. So the promise that
it will not be "too much to endure" might actually mean more
like "so much as to wreck your whole life"???
But that still
does not sit right with me because I do know people who have
wrecked their whole life. People who have gone back to drugs
and killed themselves young without getting back to God. Or
people who are so much less than they used to be because they
have given in or given up because things got too tough.
Looking
at the people above, Moses temper eventually meant he did
not get to enter the Promised Land. David's violent life meant
he could not build the temple and his children by different
wives caused all sorts of problems after his death. They still
had consequences to deal with even though God was gracious
to them.
The only person who did live without sinning was
Jesus. The biggest struggle He went through was Gethsemane.
Jesus was fully human as well as being God, I think the battle
of facing the cross was too much for Him to humanly bear.
The battle of Gethsemane was the battle for Jesus' will, it
was the battle for human will to be broken and handed over
to God, it was the battle for all mankind to be able to say
"Your will be done". Jesus prayed "if it is possible" not
to have to go through with the cross, but He got to the point
where He agreed with the Father's will that he should go through
with it. In His human weakness he was able to find Divine
strength. On the cross Jesus faced the battle again- he felt
totally abandoned. He cried out "My God, why have you forsaken
me?" but in that abandonment was able to also pray "Father,
into your hands I commit my spirit". Jesus was totally broken
of all his human strength and so Jesus leads the way for everyone
who finds their difficulties too much. He showed that we cannot
handle what we are going through- the point is we can and
should hand it over to the Father.
So, that's the point where
I can reconcile myself to this verse. I do find things are
too much for me sometimes, but the Holy Spirit in me links
me to Jesus who was able to surrender to the Father and find
strength there. So the strength to get me through is not my
own, it is Divine. It will not be easy, but the strength I
need is available once I give up my own strength.
